XLERATOR Hand Dryer Inventor Reveals Lifelong Hatred of Stand-Up Comedy

EAST LONGMEADOW, MA—In a tell-all book released yesterday on the history of the XLERATOR hand dryer, retired inventor Miles Bernstein reveals the motivations behind his flagship product: a passion for innovation, a deep concern for reducing paper waste, and above all, a festering hatred of live stand-up comedy.

The book, entitled Fuck Your Punchline; My Hands Are Wet, details Bernstein’s frustration in the mid-1990's with conventional restroom hand-drying equipment: unhygienic cloth towels, wasteful paper towels, and weak electric hand dryers that fail to efficiently remove moisture or drown out the voices of any stand-up comedians that may be performing just outside the restroom.

“I’ve always hated bad product design, environmental waste, and most of all, stand-up comedy,” admits Bernstein in the book’s first chapter. “I used to attend bar shows just to heckle and order frozen drinks that require a loud blender, but that wasn’t enough. I yearned for a way to disrupt a comic’s control of the room even when I wasn’t there, preferably in a way that also reduces the venue’s carbon footprint.”

Then, in 1997, Bernstein heard a comedian perform a joke about how electric hand dryers are weak and ineffectual.

“It was terrible, just like every joke ever written,” writes Bernstein. “But it made me realize how to combine my passion for engineering and my seething contempt for comedy itself. I decided right then and there to find a way to put a jet engine inside every hand dryer in America.”

After the XLERATOR gained popularity in the early 2000’s, Bernstein recalls stopping in at bar shows around the country to witness what he calls “the sweet sound of an otherwise well-timed punchline rendered inaudible by turbulent air.”

“God, it gives me a half-chub just thinking about it,” writes Bernstein.